Invoking an obscure provision of the New York City administrative code, city lawyers went to court Thursday seeking an injunction barring the sale of two toy guns that are replicas of semiautomatic weapons.
Mayor David Dinkins, in announcing the action, said in a news conference that more than 200 serious crimes had been committed last year in the city by people using toy guns.The city lawyers, who filed papers in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, based their case for an injunction on a provision of the administrative code, approved by the City Council in 1955 and apparently long ignored, that bans the sale of toy guns that are black, blue or silver and that "substantially duplicate actual pistols or revolvers."
City lawyers determined that the two toy guns, one dark blue and one black, look very similar to real semiautomatic weapons.